You want to skate with the big boys, you have to go by the big-boy rules.

And that includes sharpening your blades when TV tells you it’s the right time.

Wonderful, we begin with the pervasive attitude of automatically bowing down to power. You’ll notice a distinctly Un-American theme throughout the arguments against the request for Bob Miller to do National Broadcasts. Yes, I went there. It is Un-American to insist, as so many have insisted, that because someone has a big stick, I should back down and be hit with that stick.

NBC isn’t, nor should it be, apologizing for the fact that the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoff games appearing every which way on its network-owned channels since April have generated a record number of viewers, no matter how the ratings are calibrated.

This claim to ratings may be true, I haven’t tracked all the ratings, though it doesn’t bother to mention that games like LA’s series and sweep clinching victory over St. Louis was one of the most poorly rated hockey games in distant record. But I’m the glad Tom is so willingly to immediately give the massive corporation his full support. I’m sure they’d be happy to return the favor.

The Southern California NHL fans who have seen the Kings reach the conference finals for the first time in 19 years might remain in some kind of cultural cable shock, most accustomed to the days when the local broadcast team of Bob Miller and Jim Fox were allowed to stay on doing live game coverage on the same channel all the way through the Finals. ESPN was the national broadcaster way back then.

Condescension once again. This assumes that LA fans don’t bother watching the playoffs other years and don’t understand that local broadcasts are blocked in favor of national broadcasts. This argument continues in this article and elsewhere, based off the premise that those like Tom insist we simply don’t understand the concept of a national versus a local broadcast. Quite the contrary, local broadcasters often are hired to do national telecasts – Brian Hayward – all we ask for is that one of the best in the business, Bob Miller, be afforded the same opportunity.

As for ESPN, hockey would be much better off if the contract with ESPN wasn’t bungled in the first place. It is good that the sport is getting national attention again, but let us not pretend that this is some huge victory for the NHL when truly it is a long delayed correcting of an earlier error. We call this square one.

Sam Flood, NBC’s executive producer of NHL coverage, said he has not received a flood of negative emails, tweets or texts about how these playoffs are playing in L.A. through the prism of the peacock’s partnership with new owners Comcast.

I find using the term flood in the same sentence in reference to a man named Flood to be indicative of poor writing skills and a lack of vocabulary, but that is besides the point. Flood may be right, he may be lying. This is a matter of opinion as to what constitutes “a flood” and really amounts to Flood saying “not enough for me to care, ants”.

For as challenging as it might be for Kings fans to find their way around the remote control, the network’s setup to covering the NHL means greater things in the bigger picture, he said.

Useless condescension once again. I am comforted to know that the line between impassioned bloggers like myself and paid professionals who work for newspapers has become nearly nonexistent. We’ll address Flood’s point about the bigger picture in a second.

“It’s a good system,” he said Thursday from his New York office. “It’s no different than the NBA or Major League Baseball. This is professional sports and the NHL is obviously important in that landscape.

“It’s reality, and it’s a great thing for the sport on a national platform. It shows how far it’s come and how much bigger it’s become.”

Of course the man in charge of the system thinks its a good system. As for comparisons to NBA and MLB, those sports have a built-in national audience, much larger than hockey. They don’t meed to appease local fans the way that the NHL does and should. This notion of the bigger picture is quite simply that a major network wants to maximize profit. They are passing this off as good for the sport when it is truly just good for their company. The only thing that makes it good for the sport is that without exclusivity, the national network likely doesn’t bother with the NHL. The exclusivity itself is superfluous to what is good for the sport.

If a local feed that blacked out the national feed was allowed, that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a national feed. The game is still reaching just as many homes. People in the local market, oddly enough, have their local channel. In fact more people in Los Angeles have Fox Sports West than they do NBCSN. I don’t have numbers on it, but NBCSN is part of a larger cable package, whereas FSW is part of a lesser, basic package. My understanding is that everyone who has NBCSN in LA has FSW, but not everyone who has FSW has NBCSN.

Having a local feed for the local fans and a national feed for the rest of the nation does not disparage the benefit of the game reaching a national audience in any way, shape or form. What is does do is discourage a corporation focused on the bottom line to make a deal with the NHL. Exclusivity is NBC strong arming the NHL into getting something it desperately wants: national exposure.

But this isn’t even the issue. When Kings fans say “we want Bob Miller”, that is being deviously regurgitated by outlets such a Hoffarth’s column as if the demand was “we want Fox Sports West”. Well any Kings fan will tell you, they don’t have any affinity towards Fox Sports West, it is to Bob Miller that we give our respect and devotion. What we have asked for is that NBC hire Bob Miller, the same way they hired Doc Emrick, the same way they hired Brian Hayward for some incomprehensible reason. This question is not responded to because it would require NBC to disparage Bob Miller directly, giving reasons why they wouldn’t want to hire him. This is where the contract aspect gets thrown around, but contract issues can always be worked out if both parties are willing and I see no reason why FSW would bar Miller from signing a temporary contract to work for NBC. No, NBC has other reasons and if they were to put them forth as to why Bob Miller isn’t good enough for their network they would instantly alienate its second biggest media market in Los Angeles hockey fans. So instead they divert attention from the actual request.

Meaning, grow up or go off and grumble elsewhere.

I have been diplomatic on this issue. My diplomacy is towards NBC. Tom Hoffarth is nothing but an inflammatory columnist who finds it amusing to makes such remarks towards the people of the city in which he writes for a newspaper. Thusly, my sentiment towards this quote is short, but laced with expletives. I did not know who Tom Hoffarth was before today, I will return to that state of existence tomorrow.

“If you want hockey, you’re going to the NBC Sports Network, and if it’s not there, we’ve let people know where to find it,” Flood said. “The NHL is exclusive over a distinct network group.

This is a response to people being upset when game 3 began and they saw the Flyers in overtime instead of Kings/Blues. The Kings game was on another NBC network, however NBC failed to afford the simple courtesy of a graphic or an announcement by the commentators telling Kings fans what channel to go to since the schedule as listed was undone by an overtime. The amount of blame being thrust upon viewers due to a small but costly oversight on the part of the network is astonishing. NBC could have fessed up to a small mistake but instead chose to insult its viewers. As far as Sam Flood is concerned, saying “The NHL is exclusive over a distinct network group” is sufficient and denies his company more interactive and timely updates on its listings.

“This is a national sport and the greatest statement for the game is this exclusivity. It’s helped outside the home markets pushing agendas.”

Self aggrandizement. Do a better job. This is the problem with exclusivity, it destroys the need to strive for excellence. When the purpose of a venture is profit, competition is the greatest equalizer, or so goes the premise on which this country was founded.

The Kings’ opener of the Western Conference finals against Phoenix starts at 5 p.m. Sunday, but not on KNBC-Channel 4, which has the final round of The Players Championship golf tournament during the midday and prime-time shows at night. Game 1 goes back to the NBC Sports Network, which is in nearly 80 million homes across the country since it was known as Versus, and is accessible to that other 20 million if they care to upgrade (i.e., pay more) with their cable or dish operator.

Nice of Tom to needlessly plug the giant corporation at the end there.

Brian Engblom, the former Kings defenseman and team radio analyst with Nick Nickson from 1991-95, will be back as part of the NBC crew on the Western Conference finals with Dave Strader on the call, and Darren Pang inside the glass.

This is bad news for the Kings, because Brian Engblom is not very good at his job.

But wait, just last year Dave Strader was the play by play guy the Coyotes. It would be utter blasphemy if Bob Miller called one of these games! Of course I know that Strader is no longer employed by the Coyotes, a fact that I’m sure will haunt the fans in Phoenix as they get to listen to their known and comfortable voice call their Conference Finals games.

Engblom understands how the Kings’ viewers must be a bit miffed getting this far without Miller and Fox, but every local market deals with it.

“Bob and Jim are a terrific team – you don’t last as long as they have without being great,” Engblom said. “But with all due respect, when was the last time basketball had any playoff games (past the first round) done by the local broadcasters? Football was doing this way before us.

“I think it just shows how long it’s been for Kings fans to be anywhere this deep in the playoffs. They’re just not used to it yet. They need to get up to speed here.”

I don’t particularly care what Engblom has to say during games, let alone in this article, but it’s good to know that he is willing to condescend to Kings fans as well. Once again we are being treated as ignorant when we ask for change or better yet, accountability to performance.

Engblom said when he left Staples Center last week after doing Games 3 and 4 of the Kings-St. Louis Western Conference semifinals, he got grief from fans of both teams, which proved to him that he and Strader called it right.

Good. If he was enjoyable to listen to he wouldn’t have gotten as much grief. The fact that he thinks unanimous disgust with his commentating is proof that he is doing his job correctly is a sign of how truly out of touch he is with the idea notion of broadcasting. Of course, this is assuming that Engblom said such a thing that isn’t being quoted directly. It is possible our fantastic writer Tom Hoffarth is drawing that conclusion himself and denoted it to Engblom… Which now that I think of it, sounds oddly familiar…

Also, there were St. Louis fans at games 3 and 4?

“You can’t have local broadcasters do a national game, because it’s completely different, and it’s amazing to me how fans don’t want to acknowledge that,” Engblom said. “Doing a game for a national audience, you’re trying to figure out the story from different angles and find a balance. But then this business is so subjective. People love or hate you. It’s way more than when you’re a player. Sometimes it feels personal.”

Now Engblom is condescending to Bob and Jim, insinuating that he has a skill they do not and could not possess. This is also merely an excuse for all the grief he has taken for his endless, mindless babble. “Of course I chatter on about nothing, it makes it better for everyone!” This is what we call appealing to the lowest common denominator, which again, is counter-productive if the desired result is excellence, which for NBC I believe we have clearly established it is not.

And Brian, it is personal. You are a boring listen. You are far from unbiased and it’s not like when you were playing, because hockey players do something that doesn’t involve interfacing their personalities with the fans. Your job does, and we have decided your personality leaves us bedraggled.

In the NHL’s big picture, the Kings bring the No. 2 national TV market to the final four. On the other end, the New York Rangers are a win away from delivering the No. 1 market. Yet most of the teams that did generate higher local TV ratings have been eliminated. A recent Forbes story pointed out that the Kings were 26th out of 30 teams in local TV ratings on Fox Sports West.

A symptom of the vast majority of Los Angeles fans being fickle and not hopping on board a wagon until the band is rolling out of town.

I’m going to skip ahead here because the next few paragraphs are uninteresting. The story ends with…

“It’s not trying to get any demographic or chase this audience or that one,” he said. “It’s about hockey being the topic of conversation, being true to the game. You cover it, and honor the sport and see how great it continues to be. You get more people engaged.

“Hockey went to the backburner for a time in Chicago and Boston, and now, nothing is hotter. That’s what happens when you catch the fever. That’s happening in L.A. even when there are two basketball teams in the playoffs. We realize they have a lot bigger fan base, and they can catch the bug and be passionate fans.”

OK, so Flood can say something that doesn’t involve his own voice being redirected back into his skull in order to increase its size. Tom ends the article here, in what feels more and more like a PR piece for NBC. No reference to the topic of the article, and no conclusion, perhaps because Tom drew his conclusion in the first sentence – another hallmark of a fantastic writer and a better thinker.

Unfortunately Tom’s attitude is one I’ve seen all over the Internet, even from some Kings fans.

“It is what it is.”

I often feel this way about many subjects. Sunsets. Rain. Aging. I do not feel this way about companies who make decisions and are supposed to be held accountable to their consumers. Apathy drives me crazy.

“It’s not fair to Phoenix fans to have Bob call the game.”

And yet Dave Strader is calling the games. Is that some petty form of karma? As if karma was the universe’s bully smacking us forcefully with our own fists while demanding we stop hitting ourselves? Separately, since again I know it’s slightly different with Strader not being employed by the Coyotes anymore, then Bob should be calling the Eastern Conference finals. In my appeal I never distinctly said Bob should only be calling the Kings’ games. I said Bob Miller is one of the best broadcasters around and based on merit and excellence needs to be calling games on the national stage.

And my favorite: “The NBC broadcasts don’t really bother me.”

This is the lowest common denominator talking. Anything less than great bothers me. But again, my goal is excellence and my goals seem to diverge with NBC’s and the expectations of some viewers.

All in all, I merely want the Kings and Bob Miller to know how much we support them. I want NBC to know that the people they have hired are doing a piss poor job more often than not. I want to be understood and responded to by people who can grasp a concept without compounding it with baggage I didn’t check in to this flight.

I still want to hear Bob Miller. I am thinking of other things the Kings can do to appease us in this matter and will write more letters to the appropriate parties as I come up with a plan to suggest.

The funny thing is this attitude of “Kings fans just aren’t used to it, they need to get with the program”, aside from being mot truly just a poorly veiled dig at what we already know is a less than spectacular history, is total crap.

If the Kings get this far from now until the end of Bob’s career, I will say the thing every year.

In fact I just may ask for Bob to do games even when the Kings aren’t in the playoffs… Not that that’s going to happen anytime soon :)

I have to say my main aggravation is the lack of play-by-play. I don’t want to hear the ongoing, pointless chatter and I have screamed at the TV several times for those morons to shut up and just give a simple play-by-play. These are important games, not the useless convos they persist in carrying on during play.

Seriously. They talk about having to weave a story? Your mindless bullshit IS NOT A STORY. Passionately *calling* the game and providing occasional *pertinent* analysis on plays is a story. Doc may often be obnoxious, but that is what makes him good.

hats off to FSW for showing classic games last night. seeing the kings & leafs in 1993 for the first time brought me chills. i was only a mere child then, so it’s obvious i had no idea what was going on. gretsky really was a beast, it really shows how much grit this team as a whole has to mirror that kind of success. GKG!!!

Speaking about sports in general, the commentator(s) often represent a large portion of the personality and heart of a team. Sure it’s a localized experience, however, spending a few games introducing an unfamiliar part of the team, to a national audience, would be great. It’s frustrating watching a national game with nothing more than a national perspective. It’s the same information on espn and nhl.com regurgitated back. I always thought it would be a fun incentive, for home playoff games, to have local announcers call them and further intensify the rivalry. It would feel much more like a road game from the road team’s audience.

Kings hockey without Bob? Dodgers without Vin? It’s not the same without the friend you’ve watched nearly every game with :(

So, in order, are the top two reasons we don’t hear more of Bob Miller:
1. Jim Fox
2. NBC

How about we ‘flood’ Bob’s email with requests that he do a live podcast or something. Would that fly? I doubt he would say, “Maybe next deep playoff run.”

2-3? year anonymous S&S fan. Keep up the good work. It’s awesome when writers and their audience shows mutual respect for one another.

The kings inability to cross the blue line with creativity or speed led me to seek comfort from a group that understood. Glad times are a changin’. TY S&S

Amen! I too am irratated by people saying that’s how it is! How on earth do they consider haywad yes I called him haywad and didn’t capitilize his name for the pure simple fact that I CAN’T STAND TO HEAR HIM TALK! He is that bad!!!. It sucks that Bob has been so dedicated to the Kings and the chance that the Kings May win the cup he is shut out! Flood is wrong Chick Hern always called playoff games from my memorie of. The past! I can’t belive that AEG hasn’t protested or even got involved to help Bob call the Kings winning the Stanley Cup! That is heartless! I refuse to do buy be involv ed with anything AEG. They should be heading this fight especially since the fans not just in LA but back east all feel the same way! I am sooo irritated right now! If you have any phone numbers to call and complain to nbc you should post name and numbers and we fans need to call it at least 5x a day! Tim Conway Jr is a talk show host on KFI radio and a big Milller fan! We need to get him involved he was congradulating Miller on the radio but have the feeling he doesn’t know that Miller is being sidelined that same station has a huge fan ok the Kings in Bill Carroll the fan base of kfi 640 is huge get these guys involved. Maybe that will help us get Bob in time for the final round and the Kings winning the cup!

If I were Bob, and I were watching these games at home, i’d probably mute the fuckers and call the game just for myself. I’d actually do my own job, voluntarily, at home, for free, rather than listen to the twats we’ve been stuck with.

SJ, as you and everyone here knows, I’m the most modest and solicitous of men. I make it a point not to badmouth anybody and I avoid any sort of abusive, insulting, language.

So it’s really out of character for me to say this, but you’re so fulla shit you gush with it.

There’s nothing wrong with Doc Emrick. And there’s nothing wrong with Engblom and Hayward that a Kings victory wouldn’t cure. (In fact, I’d love to hear them “wudja-wudja-ing” as our boys smear their unwiped asses on all their spastic predictions.)

Yes, it would be wonderful for Bob Miller to call the games. But for all his vaunted impartiality, for all his greatness — and for me, he’s been the greatest play-by-play announcer of the lot — he’s still a homer and can’t be anything else while the Kings are in the mix.

I don’t know what it would take to have BM announce through a separate, local feed while the rest of mankind listens to the Foster Hewitt du jour. If NBC can figure that out, swell. If it can’t — or doesn’t give enough of a shit to try — then fuck it, I can live without. Like they say, we should consider ourselves lucky we’re getting TV coverage at all. I still remember when a TV market as big as L.A. got the Cup finals — not any of the rest of the playoffs, just the FINALS! — only on UHF channel 22, with games split in two, the first half of a Boston homer being shown until mid-way through the second period, then the second half being broadcast at 11:00 p.m., after several hours of intervening local prime-time Jap soap operas.

Just take solace in Ecclesiastes: “Keepeth thy dicketh in thy pantseth and rocketh not the boat.” (At least I think it’s from Ecclesiastes. It’s in the Bible SOMEwhere.)

“Yes, it would be wonderful for Bob Miller to call the games. But for all his vaunted impartiality, for all his greatness — and for me, he’s been the greatest play-by-play announcer of the lot — he’s still a homer and can’t be anything else while the Kings are in the mix.”

… He’s definitely had his homer moments, especially during the ’93 run and in ’01. I suspect he wouldn’t be quite as popular with Kings’ fans if he didn’t have those moments. I definitely believe he could tone it down if he were doing a national broadcast – but I don’t know if I’d WANT a toned-down Bob Miller doing the games, and going national has never been Bob’s M.O. anyway. If he had wanted a national gig, he’d have had one a long time ago.

… Exactly, as I said in my post in the first article. NBC doesn’t care about this at all, nor should they. They’ve done a great job making every single playoff game available this year. There have been a couple snags, like the snafu before game 3 of the second round (the beginning of the game was actually televised on the NHL Network for me) but for the most part, it’s been fine.

This campaign to appeal to NBC is barking up the wrong tree, anyway. I know that the Kings can control who does their radio broadcasts. If the Kings wanted Bob Miller doing the play-by-play broadcast, Bob would be doing them. It wouldn’t at all be a slight to Nick Nickson, who would be there with him as he was in the 80s. If you want to appeal to someone, appeal to a group who is (or should be) interested in what Kings’ fans think – the Kings’ organization itself.

The point is that Bob Miller is the best and he needs to be calling the game for the
Kings! Take the issue to the Kings owners they should be fighting for Bob. Also take it to the celebrity fanz 2 kfi640 am talk show host TimConway Jr he was praising Bob for his hard work but I don’t think he knows Bob won’t b with his team. Also Bill Carroll big time fan with a huge fan base with both guys! That’s my ideas to help! Thanks

I am very appreciative of your drawing injustice. Coming home from game 3 I listened with genuine pride as you first mentioned the issue in the post-game show with Nick and Darryl. The thing that LA fans understand is that we have been spoiled with three of the greatest announcers of all time in Vin Scully, Chick Hearn, and Bob Miller. All three have a unique ability to call an unbiased game in game 42 or a Championship equally well. Each of them has a storied history of being critical of their own team when warranted, which educates and empassions their fan bases. (Side bar: This is the true injustice of “Hazy” Hayward. His homerism does not educate the Ducks followers, which is why they earn a reputation as least knowledgable fans in the League.)

East Coast bias aside, even the major networks would acknowledge a legitimate Hall Of Fame announcer during the playoffs of baseball and basketball as Vin and Chick did so many of those games over the years when their respective team/employer was not in the hunt. The NHL has no shining beacon of neutrality a la Bob Costas to step in and call a genuine “history in the making” laden Cup Final. In absence of a “voice of the league” personality, the myopic perspective of not hiring Bob Miller is even more glaring. There is no question that Bob should have been called to duty for this playoff, but he should have been calling games in the last 10 years of playoffs as well. This is an argument that should have been made by Kings fans years ago, and it’s legitimacy should not be dismissed by the fact that the Kings are in a Conference Final.

And I’d rather have Espo, Dick Thorn or Gary Clement than any of the other announcers NBC has dusted off and propped up in the booth like Brian “Flock of Seagulls” Engblom. And above all else, there is no excuse for hiring Hayward for ANY playoff game, much less one the Kings (or any Pacific Division team for that matter) was playing in.

So the Kings get Hayward (Ducks color guy) and now Darren Pang (Blues color guy) but we can’t get Bob Miller or Jim Fox. OK then.

I honestly like Dave Strader as an announcer, but we never hear his play-by-play because everyone is always talking over each other. How about less talking heads, and more actual calling of the game. I think one less announcer would improve their broadcasts.

Mr. Hoffarth…LA is the media. LA has no problem recognizing hucksters spewing hucksterisms. You would be best listening to the fans of LA rather then defending some has been defenseman who LA had no use for.

These guys are doing little more then reading staff reports when it comes to commenting on Western Teams. I am looking for insight, not inanity.

The fact of the matter is that Bob Miller is a Hall of Fame broadcaster, whom we should be listening to in SOME aspect while the Kings are in the playoffs. There is no excuse for us having to listen to Brian Hayward, who simply sucks. If they had even put Bob between the glass it would be better than not having him at the games at all. The fact that no one at NBC seems to CARE about pissing off the number 2 media market on this issue at a time of this potential for it to become huge in hockey, and it will be for some time, is astonishing. I have to tip my hat to David Beckham who, when asked if he felt strange playing a soccer game in a hockey town, in a press conference in Montreal, said that he thought that LA was the hockey town at the moment. If he gets it, why can’t NBC?

At least for bleep sakes let the radio feed feature Bob and Nick or even just let Bob lead for one period. Having him on the outside looking in (after all this) is far and away the worst part of this playoffs and will tarnish any magical conclusion. Please oh please let the monarch in the room…

Joe Micheletti was covering second round games, and he is an announcer for the Rangers. Why can’t Bob cover second round games? Also, the point isn’t so much that we want Miller, but more we want announcers who aren’t horrible and sound like they have covered more than 10 games in the last year.

Micheletti is not employed by the NYR. He’s employed by the MSG Network. Now MSG Network is owned by MSG, Inc. they in turn own the Rangers. So one could make a case there’s something of a connection there. But, he does not get listed by the Rangers as an employee.

Hey, I’m all for whinging to get good announcers. I just don’t think it’s reasonable to let team employees call games when their teams are still in the hunt. It’s like Caesar’s wife…

I’d be thrilled if Pat Foley (Blackhawks) got a chance.

I’d be thrilled if Miller, Fox, Nickson, Evans, and Hammond were employed by somebody else but kept their responsibilities a la the MSG deal. FSW could hire them. And, that might loosen their tongues as wee bit.

Exactly. There are ways around all of this garbage, which is why I just don’t accept the line that bias and contracts make it impossible. NBC doesn’t want it to happen and the Kings don’t want to make it happen. It’s only a matter of will that stops us from getting Miller or any other number of better broadcasters, not some bullshit brick wall that people wholly willing to subjugate themselves to power insist exists.